One trick I used over the weekend on a Custom Group story to lock the level range to 25-30 was to use another Custom Group with suitable levels of standard minions as the main enemy (I used Spectral Demons & Nerva Spectral Demons and called it Spirits as it suited the mission) and then using Patrols & Boss Objectives of the Custom Enemy to "Eat up" most of the Spectral spawns (I kept two of the Spirit spawns in for variety).
Initially I had used battles instead but they were over too quickly so all I ended up seeing half-defeated groups standing around. I might add one or two front-loaded battles in again for flavour but found Patrols were more useful (nice too because they can easily stumble across you as you're fighting a boss).
The lack of ability to set the Team Size when testing (as well as a lack of God Mode and Invis Mode settings) is really hurting testing the Custom Enemies too, very hard to know if they are well balanced for mid to large teams.
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One trick I used over the weekend on a Custom Group story to lock the level range to 25-30 was to use another Custom Group with suitable levels of standard minions as the main enemy (I used Spectral Demons & Nerva Spectral Demons and called it Spirits as it suited the mission) and then using Patrols & Boss Objectives of the Custom Enemy to "Eat up" most of the Spectral spawns (I kept two of the Spirit spawns in for variety).
Initially I had used battles instead but they were over too quickly so all I ended up seeing half-defeated groups standing around. I might add one or two front-loaded battles in again for flavour but found Patrols were more useful (nice too because they can easily stumble across you as you're fighting a boss).
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I mention locking down mission level ranges in post 5 under the headings Locking down level ranges and Advanced Creative Lockdown.
As the latter points out, there is a lot that can be done without being too intrusive if you get creative with spawn groups and chaining objectives, as you should be able to engineer ranges uses unions and intersections of the individual group/mob ranges.
The hardest part could be finding suitable mobs to provide a set covering the desired level range if you have specific needs for a non-standard range... i.e. there are lot's of mobs that can easily be used to lockdown a range to 20-30, but it'd be tricky (and maybe impossible) to select mobs to give a range of 28-47 if you needed that for whatever reason.
Hey - I don't ask why anyone wants a specific level range, I just try to figure out how it can be achieved if you want it...
btw - if you didn't want the spirits in for variety, you could probably have set them as the group used for a chained spawn - pick well and make the chained objective a non-mission completion with no navigation text and it's probable that most players would never notice/see the lockdown spawn.
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The lack of ability to set the Team Size when testing (as well as a lack of God Mode and Invis Mode settings) is really hurting testing the Custom Enemies too, very hard to know if they are well balanced for mid to large teams.
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Yup - testing could do with improving. I guess that we have limited options as any testing options breaking out into the live game (as they undoubtedly would at some point & time - bugs happen) could cause major breakage. It is certainly more prudent to leave testing as harder to do but reduce the chance of game breaking bugs throughout the game.
I could imagine semi-regular testing services setting up...
BTW - I must update some of the original thread/guide - a few extra bits and bobs of interest to add and clarifications to make...
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Also wanted to add my thanks to you for this post; I too have been having trouble with forcing spawn levels, as when I was testing my map with the Devouring Earth, who can go up to level 50 I was only getting one or two units and didn't understand why... but it doesn't scale all of them up to 50, only the ones already flagged as being able to be that level.
So now I'm going to create a second Custom group out of Devouring Earth, called "Enraged Devouring Earth", only of a few individuals who'll set the upper and lower ranges and force the main D.E. to appear. And I'll put them as the patrols, as it'll fit the story line I have in mind 
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force the main D.E. to appear
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If a mob type doesn't exist within a level range, there is nothing you can do to make them appear in that range. You can never get level 40+ herders, because they don't exist in the game. There is a trick that can make them appear as outleveled mobs though.
I really should do something about this signature.
True, PRAF - but I think that BA is referring to using the trick whereby you'd limit the range to, say, 30-40 and so herders would appear (and would not be outlevelled mobs) even if a level 50 did the mission.
That would certainly be in context of the posts prior to BAs...
And BA does say he'd use other mobs to set "the upper and lower ranges and force the main D.E. to appear" - much as has been described in this thread already.
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Ah, yes, I see. I'm being dim.
I really should do something about this signature.
No you aren't being dim old chap... I've just tried to implement the above, and been able to force the missions level down to 25-46, where the main bulk of the Earth's units are and where I'd like the early missions to be (It'll run to two separate highlights where you can go to maximum level) but now I'm getting a "Level Range Invalid" warning. It doesn't appear as an error in the mission editor, so I'm wondering how to get around it. It may be because there's a Civilian to be rescued on the map, with a class of 1-51, not sure yet...
A 1-51 civvie shouldn't be a problem, you must have something 24- or 47+ in there.
I really should do something about this signature.
1-51 should be fine.. but beware that selecting an individual mob (e.g. for boss/hostage/captive/ally) uses the individual mob range, not their group range.
E.g. (from memory - still in TF...) flower Knight has a 1-1 range, but is in pets which has a 1-54 range. Using Flower Knight treats her as a seperate group with range of 1-1.
So check your groups and your single mobs - chances are that one of them isn't available in 25-46 range.
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Stickied too!
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I don't think you pushed 'sticky this' button
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Example 1:
Let's say that you want to lockdown a mission to level 20-31 but can't find a mob/group that has that range.
Creating a Pick'n'Mix custom group that includes the following could be useful:
Arachnos - Nocturne - AV - lvl 20-27
Arachnos - Barracuda - AV - lvl 25-31
This Pick'n'Mix group will now have a level range of 20-31 (i.e. the union of 20-27 and 25-31).
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Ugh... I've spent ages trying to work out where my problem is, still to no avail;
The Devouring Earth, main group can go from Level 25 to 54
My custom group of DE, "Enraged Devouring Earth" is Level 25 to 46.
So although there's an overlap, the mission doesn't get scaled to 25-46, but instead 25-54.
I've deleted everything except the custom group, which in the group editing page doesn't show the bar going up to 54, and I can't see a mob that has L54 availability; but when added to a blank mission as a defeat all, with no other spawns, it's STILL showing as L54.
Here's the custom group file; can someone check it for me and check if it's a problem with the actual custom group please?
I solved the other problem, on not being able to start; it was a battle in Mission 2 (that I wasn't looking at) that broke the level range, which when deleted ceased to cause trouble. I'll return to that problem when I've got my first level working as I want it!
Do you have "random minion" in your custom DE group?
An easier way to set the level range might be to find a single mob with the correct range, from anywhere, and spawn them as a boss fight or ally.
I really should do something about this signature.
Fixed! Probably my Monday morning "Duh!" moment, my apologies!
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Brilliant stuff, Thanks JD. 
Tidgy
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Do you have "random minion" in your custom DE group?
An easier way to set the level range might be to find a single mob with the correct range, from anywhere, and spawn them as a boss fight or ally.
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I've just tried adding and then removing again the Random creatures to the mix, but it still lists the spawn as Level 54 maximum. I also tried creating an entirely new mission, in case of hidden file corruption but that didn't make any difference either.
Admittedly I didn't try the spawn in game yet...but what does the (Random) creatures do exactly?
I'll also try making an even smaller sub set of devouring earth for patrols after I've done some food shopping and see if that helps, but so far I can't seem to do anything which caps off the upper levels... if I find a solution I'll post it here for others though.
Just started looking at your DE group. And a couple of things I've noticed straight off:
* Editing the group (even linking from within the mission editor) can alter the level range, but it seems to take a while to filter through and show that the range has changed. e.g. I deleted everything but a 41-41 mob and the mission still showed me 25-54 for a while. Even when I'd changed group used to another and then back again.. it seemed to decide that the range had changed after a minute or so had passed and I'd selected another arc and then come back...
Anyway - I'm continuing to have a look at this for you.
EDIT 1:
Hmm - in the first handful that I look at I've already found one that seems 'out of range' - i.e. using a lvl50 and running a subset of the DE that should be up to lvl 45 I've found one that goes to 47. 'Deathblossom' - which appears to be a blackrose (it's annoying how the name isn't consistent..)
EDIT 2:
Yuck - there's a nasty bug as far as I'm concerned... writing it up now
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Addenda
Mobs May Lie About their Age!
This may be a big beta bug... I hope so!
It appears that some of the mobs lie about their level ranges - and not just so that they can get served alcohol by claiming to be lvl 21! 
I had a closer look knowing that an EU poster (Bovine_Avenger) was having difficulty with a custom DE group. The group was designed to lockdown the level range and should have had a maximum upper limit of 45, and was showing this in the group designer, but when the mission was run it was reporting an upper range limit of 54.
And I found that the DE have several mobs that seem to lie about their range:
e.g.
Devouring Earth - Razorvine - minion (31-36) - Actual Range: 25-47
Devouring Earth - Deathspore - minion (31-35) - Actual Range: 26-41
The claimed level range is the one shown in the level range coverage bar (and so is very possibly the range used to decide if a Pick'n'Mix group has valid range coverage) but when you save/reload the arc or go to test the arc then the actual level range used by the server to spawn mobs appears to be used.
Looking closer at the results, it's clear that:
if you pick a mob that belongs to a 'family' of similar mobs at various ranges then the server is currently able to use any of the family - it does not appear to be limited to the specific mobs that you select!
E.g. The DE has a family^ of 'Bladegrass' critters, these all seem to have a common model (re-coloured, or maybe it's re-textured) and common powers. The Bladegrass family is:
-- Bladegrass - minion (25-30)
-- Razorvine - minion (32-36)
-- Blackrose - minion (38-42)
-- Deathblossom - minion (44-47)
It looks like selecting any one of these individual mobs for a custom group actually allows any of the family to appear.
E.g. 2 The DE also have a 'Fungoid' family, comprising:
-- Fungoid - minion (26-30)
-- Deathspore - minion (32-35)
-- Deathcap - minion (37-41)
Again, selecting any one of these individual mobs for a custom group appears to allow any of the family to appear.
By the way - my testing was with a kill all mission with just a single mob at a time selected as a custom group. The mission contact always told me it was 25-47 range if I selected one of the Bladegrass family as my test mob.
^ Ok - it looks like the DE might have 2 families of Bladegrass, 1 with summoning skills (SummonFX power) and one without. I don't know if they are interchangeable, although testing might tell us I haven't done testing for this!
It's good to KISS
The old KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) principle can help if you need to create a custom group for lockdown purposes.
Since the lockdown group/mobs only needs to be included as a minor part of the mission (e.g. a single battle/patrol, as guards or late spawning hostage mobs) then the lockdown groups should be kept as simple as possible to make them easier to debug if (and when) something unexpected happens.
E.g. If you want a mission with a standard enemy group in, but want to lockdown the level range, create your lockdown group with a few mobs as needed and then set your lockdown group as the group used for a patrol and leave the main mission group as the standard group.
If the lockdown doesn't seem to work it'll cut down the number of possible mobs that are causing the problem. And when it does work few people will notice that a single patrol has a slightly different group name...
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You sir are a star... I award you your very own bug hunter!
Or at least I would, if image linked didn't seem to be disabled!
I was hoping to keep the spawn choice varied to increase replay value, but alas it's not to be; the rock type D.E. and the Devoured seem to be ok repeating your tests, despite also using re-hues so I'll just make a few patrols of Devoured to lock down the levels. Thanks!
*sighs*
After MUCH fiddling again, I've come to the conclusion that the level-forcing Mob HAS to be (or include) a different faction to the one you are using. Because no matter what single or grouped D.E. I use, it doesn't force down the normal D.E. faction; but if I use anything else, it does. Can anyone confirm I'm not imagining that though?
Edit: It also doesn't force down if you use an edited Crey group (I could have got away with scientists for roleplay reasons, as they appear in the next mission) so the only way I can manage it is the suggested battle route, and hope the odd spawn is walloped before you see him.
Thanks still to Justice for finding all the bugs and tricks so far, I'd have never got this far without his fine work!
Hmmm...
Checked this with:
- a few groups/subgroups/standard group of DE
- seperately with Crey and a subgroup (of 1)
- with Enraged DE using the single mob Crey subgroup
But the editor does seem keen to kick up 'Level range invalid' errors when there is an overlap of group ranges and custom groups are used.
Bugged it.
Anyone not seen this, you can quickly check by creatng a mission with:
- a small map
- set all required mission/arc text
- set map group to the standard group Devouring Earth (25 - 54)
- set kill all (as quick-to-set objective)
- create a patrol using a custom group of just the Crey Researcher - minion (32 - 41)
No errors show in the MA editor error display, but try to 'Save and Test' and it kicks up a 'Level range invalid' error.
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Yes, that's what had been catching me for a long time; I couldn't test a lot of the replacement groups I wanted to try due to the Level Range problem. In the end it was entering the full standard Wyvern group as a battle participant that let me through. I settled in the end on using the Security Guards to allow a 25-40 level range, and thus let lowbies run the mission whilst creating the correct D.E. variation.
My brain hurts.
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So after reading everything I just want to verify. At this time there is no way to get a "Boss" class enemy to spawn while the player is set to Heroic and by themselves when running the mission ? If I missed something could you point me toward it ?
I have tried making a custom boss, standard boss, modified boss, bosses on Standard & Hard but what ever I do use produces a Lt. All the other mechanics work as desired it is just this one part.
Heh, yeah, kind of kills the storyline though when 3 of the same hero suddently turn up
Ah well, may have to shelve this storyline until MA v2 comes out.
I really hope they add some better test modes as well. Being able to set it to things like "test as a team of 5 on invincible, with my test toon invisible to all" will be damn handy to see how things spawn for a mission, for instance.
It's just frustrating not to be able to spawn a group exactly as I want it. I have a team of 5 EB's, all different. I want just those to spawn as they are, yet I sometimes get duplicates, 2 of one, the others all different. I don't mind them scaling down to lieuts for a lower level toon, that's cool, will let people have a chance to solo it still and hopefully enjoy the arc, but it really kills the effect to get multiples of the same enemy for no good reason.
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